Posted on 04/21/2003 7:59:24 AM PDT by Brian S
April, 20 — The coronavirus identified by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as giving rise to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, may not be the only cause of the disease, Canadian heath officials said Sunday.
"We have only identified the coronavirus in 50 percent of the people being treated for SARS," health ministry spokesman Paul Gully told the Sunday edition of the Montreal newspaper La Presse. "We have a slightly less optimistic vision than the WHO, and it is still too early to talk of a medicine or a vaccine which might slow the spread of SARS," said Gully, who is also a medical doctor.
Gully's comments were based on the analysis by a Winnipeg microbiology laboratory of samples taken from Canadian SARS sufferers, La Presse said.
Outside Asia, where SARS originated, Canada has been the country worst affected by the atypical and deadly strain of pneumonia. As of Friday, 14 people had died and there were 304 people thought to be suffering from the disease.
On Wednesday, the WHO announced a coronavirus previously known in animals but never observed in humans to be the cause of SARS. Coronaviruses also cause the common cold.
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